


Poisons to Suit

by Sunshinebunnie



Series: I Would Know You Anywhere... [1]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: AU, Beth never robbed Rio, Contextualizing THAT scene from 2.04, F/M, Missing Scenes, Smut, Strangers to Lovers, The thirst is real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 14:54:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18593554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunshinebunnie/pseuds/Sunshinebunnie
Summary: A slight AU where Beth doesn't meet Rio by robbing the Fine & Frugal with the girls. Instead, Annie and Ruby take her to his bar, and sparks fly.





	Poisons to Suit

**Author's Note:**

> First, a HUGE THANK YOU to each and every one of you who take the time to read this humble work. It really means a lot to me and I hope you find it worth your time. That being said, I also want to extend an EXTRA SPECIAL thank you to all of you wonderful people who take the additional time to leave a comment/reblog/leave a kudos/bookmark my story. I appreciate your kindness more than words can say!!!
> 
> Second, this work is un-beta'd so all errors and omissions are my own.
> 
> Third--PSA TIME--DON'T EVER HAVE SEX WITH STRANGERS WITHOUT CONDOMS!! I'm normally a massive proponent of spelling out condom usage in my work, but since it's pretty clear from that scene that that is *not* how that went down in the episode and I didn't want to get too crazy with the AU, I left it out here. Seriously though--SAFE SEX IS SEXY SEX! Take care of yourself and your partner. PSA over. 
> 
> Finally--I does things on the Tumblr. Come find me in a closet @sunshinebunnie!

Poisons to Suit By: Sunshinebunnie

 

Ruby and Annie had raved about the bar for weeks before she’d finally had a chance to join them. Other than the fact it took Beth six tries to flag down a server to get a refill, she thought the bar was great. The music wasn’t so loud that she wasn’t able to talk to the girls, and the crowd wasn’t so young that she was worried about carding any potential hook-ups before bringing them home. Not that she’d been doing a lot of hooking up recently. As Annie had “helpfully” told Ruby, Beth hadn’t gotten any action in so long her lady bits were turning “into twigs.” Although she’d wanted to argue, at the end of the day, she couldn’t deny the fact that it’d been a few....years.

 

“Ok, what about him, Beth?”

 

Beth cringed. “Could you _not_ point? It makes it so obvious who you’re talking about!” she hissed.

 

“Oh c’mon. It’s not like he’s even paying attention,” her sister scoffed, eyeing up a tall blonde with a huge tribal tattoo on his bicep peeking out from under his two-sizes-too-small puke green t-shirt.

 

Beth just glared at her.

 

“Annie, you know Beth isn’t going to go for the Abercrombie model,” Ruby said without even looking up from her glass of wine.

 

The redhead preened. “Thank you.”

 

Ruby continued nonchalantly, “Now what she _needs_ is some of that dark chocolate over there at four o’clock.”

 

Beth glanced over her shoulder as discreetly as she could. The guy Ruby pointed out was certainly handsome: athletic build, shaved head, and a defined jaw. It was definitely a look she could get behind.

 

She broke out in a grin. “Um, Ruby,” she said trying to suppress a giggle. Her best friend eyed her skeptically. Beth finally lost it. “He’s also _gay_.”

 

Annie swung around in her seat so fast half her cocktail sloshed out of her margarita glass on to the table. The redhead laughed even harder as her two friends just gaped as the man Ruby picked out for her enthusiastically made out with a slightly shorter man with curly brown hair.

 

She took a deep sip of her bourbon, the ice cubes clinking against the sides of the glass as she drained her drink. The smooth, warm caramel alcohol gave her limbs a deliciously languid feel. Sliding off her barstool, she dug around in her purse for some cash until she finally found a twenty dollar bill tucked into a side pocket. “I wanna dance,” she said over her shoulder as she walked down the bar toward the digital jukebox mounted to the back wall.

 

The jukebox had an eclectic selection of music most of which she didn’t recognize. If she was being completely honest, it wasn’t a huge surprise. The bar didn’t really appear to attract the Top 40 or Hot 100 crowd. She fed the twenty into the machine anyway and hit the randomizer button.  As the first few notes of the song spread throughout the bar, Beth couldn’t really say she recognized the tune, but it had a solid beat that she found her hips responding to easily.

 

After a little while, her skin began to feel flushed. Whether from the bourbon or the dancing or just being in proximity to so many bodies, she wasn’t entirely sure, but she knew she needed another drink. As she got closer to the table, she saw that her sister and her best friend were finally ready for refills too. “Next round’s on me, ladies!” she yelled as she got a little closer to the table. Annie squealed like it was Christmas.

 

Grabbing a few more bills out of her wallet, she stuffed the money in the back pocket of her jeans and headed toward the bar. She wasn’t in much of a mood to wait for another server’s attention.

 

There was a crowd three deep at the section of the bar nearest their table. Beth scanned around for a better opening. The end of the bar closer to the jukebox seemed to be where the servers picked up their orders. Not a good place to stand around waiting for drinks. Down at the far end of the bar by the front window, it was much less crowded, as a group of six guys had just gotten up to leave. She made a beeline toward the newly opened up space.

 

After a couple minutes of standing there without any of the four bartenders on duty so much as looking at her, Beth was becoming convinced they didn’t actually _want_ to sell alcohol at this bar. She huffed a little in frustration. A smooth voice that did things to her suddenly piped up from around her elbow, “Why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?” Beth didn’t say anything as she’d been raised to believe it was rude to eavesdrop, and she was quite certain the person who spoke wasn’t speaking to _her_.

 

When it appeared that _none_ of the bartenders were working that section of the bar, she began turning to go back toward the pit of bodies. That’s when she noticed him. Trim with tawny-colored skin, and a head of buzzed black hair. His lips were quirked up in an amused smirk as she realized she was telegraphing a completely different type of thirst. Openly staring back at her, the mystery man added, “Lemme guess. A nice summer rosé?”

 

The words fell out of her mouth before she even had a chance to think about it. “I don’t drink rosé.”

 

He casually scanned her body from her 3” ankle booties to her perfectly fitted jeans, up toward her fitted black tunic that she wore in an attempt to minimize the attention “the girls” tended to attract at bars, before finally landing back on her face. “No, I don’t suppose you do,” he said after a couple seconds with a smugness that pissed her off a little.

 

“You don’t know me,” she snapped.

 

“Oh, I think I do,” he purred.

 

Beth just glared at him.

 

Without turning his attention away from her, he called over his shoulder, “Can we get a bourbon, on the rocks, please?”

 

She wasn’t sure what stunned her more: the fact that he nailed her drink order, or the fact that as soon as the words “Can we” passed his lips, the bartender closest to them immediately dropped what he was doing to listen to the man. Seizing on the opportunity, Beth quickly added, “And a margarita and a glass of Merlot too. Please.” The man beside her chuckled again causing a flare of lust to take hold in her suddenly tingly pussy.

 

His eyes twinkled as he kept looking at her, and she was positive he could tell she was blushing under his intense scrutiny despite the darkness in the bar. She kept her gaze fixed firmly on a point just over his left shoulder on what had suddenly become the most captivating bottle of gin Beth had ever seen in her life.

 

A few minutes later, the bartender returned with her drinks, but before Beth had a chance to ask the damage, the mystery man called over, “Put it on my tab,” to which the bartender nodded succinctly and quickly walked off again.

 

“That wasn’t necessary,” she hissed.

 

“I never said it was,” the man replied smoothly.

 

Beth huffed. He was absolutely infuriating. “I can pay for my own drinks,” she added a little petulantly.

 

“What’s your name?” he asked.

 

Her blue eyes were suddenly transfixed on his rich brown ones as she found herself marveling on how unfair it was that he had the most amazing eyelashes. She knew he knew she was staring at him because his eyes crinkled up at the sides as a smug smile spread easily over his handsome features. Before she entirely realized what she was doing, Beth heard herself whisper coyly, “I don’t usually tell strangers my name.”

 

His eminently kissable lips pulled to the side as he mulled over her cheeky response. However, whatever pithy comeback he was on the verge of replying with died on his lips as Annie abruptly popped up next to her elbow going, “BETH! _Gimme gimme gimme_!” as she waved frantic grabby hands in the direction of her margarita. Beth just rolled her eyes at her sister’s antics while simultaneously sliding over the margarita glass.

 

Before she grabbed her and Ruby’s drinks to return to their little hightop, she grabbed a twenty dollar bill out of her back pocket and slapped it on the bar to prove a point. It wasn’t until she had just finished walking past him that she heard his laughing voice saying, “It’s always a good idea to tip your bartender, _Elizabeth_.” An involuntary shiver ran up the length of her spine as she heard him say her name, and a larger part of her than she’d admit to wished he’d say it again.

 

  * ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••



She gave it a month. A month to purge the memory of the captivating stranger from her mind. Beth was positive that by then her hormones would’ve calmed down, or she’d begin fixating on everything she found wrong with him. Or that she’d simply forget him.

 

It was easily the most agonizingly long thirty days of her life.

 

When she’d woken up aroused for the third day in a row, she chalked it up to her extended dry spell—her body was just in hyperdrive after meeting the first devastatingly sexy man she’d been in contact with in months. By the time she’d run through her fourth set of fresh AAs in her vibrator, Beth begrudgingly accepted that she probably wasn’t just going to forget him.

 

She came with a high pitched whine that harmonized perfectly with the whine from the overtaxed motor in her sex toy. While the device’s sturdiness had been a selling point when she’d purchased it ten years ago, even she had to admit it probably wasn’t meant to run at top speed four times a day (or more) for weeks on end.  The silicone-tipped metal slid out of her nearly numb pussy with a wet squelch. Beth left the device sticky from her arousal next to her naked thigh as she stretched out her aching wrist. If she didn’t get a handle on her libido soon, she was going to have an extremely awkward case of carpal tunnel to explain at her next annual check-up. As she laid there under her duvet, legs spread eagled in her post-orgasmic haze, she could feel a light, tacky sheen begin to develop on the insides of her thighs from the sultry humidity being created by the overwhelming heat generated by her pussy. Despite the twinge of protest from her inflamed wrist, Beth flung the duvet off her legs to help disperse both the heat and the humidity that were starting to make her thighs itch from discomfort. The sudden whoosh of cool air created by the comforter’s movement caused her pussy to clench, which lead in turn to a small trickle of fresh arousal to seep past her freshly waxed lips.

 

‘This is the last straw,’ Beth thought as she rubbed a particularly sore spot on her wrist. ‘I’m going to go back to that bar and I’m going to show myself that this infatuation is completely unfounded.’

 

Her legs protested a little as she got out of bed, her thighs stiff from being held open for so long as she’d masturbated. She padded over to her bureau and grabbed a pair of light salmon-colored cotton briefs from where they were folded up in her drawer, and quickly put them on. Afterwards she grabbed the matching satin bra and a lightweight blue cashmere sweater with three-quarter length sleeves. As she grabbed a pair of jeans, she took a quick look at them before shaking her head. Taking them down the hall to her small home “office,” Beth pulled her ironing board out of the closet and laid her barely wrinkled jeans on top of it. Reaching back into the closet, she grabbed her electric iron off the lower of the two shelves and plugged it into an outlet near the board to heat up.

 

‘He’s probably not even going to be there,’ she scolded herself giving the steam button a few experimental presses to see if the iron was adequately heated up yet.

 

‘Besides, even if he _is_ there, what are you planning to do? It’s nearly 10 a.m. It’s not like you’re going to fuck him in the bathroom, and then go down to the craft store to pick up more yarn,’ she reasoned.

 

The iron started to hiss as a few whitish puffs of steam came out of its base. Beth began aggressively running the iron over her pants.

 

                     *************************************

He usually didn’t stop by the bar on Saturday mornings, but he’d stayed later than he meant to at Dags’ house the night before for his goddaughter’s eighth birthday party, and hadn’t gotten around to picking up the receipts. It wasn’t like him, and he was more than a little annoyed to have the rest of his Saturday schedule pushed back to accommodate the extra stop. If he was being completely honest, he’d been a little off about a lot of things for the past month. Rio didn’t think he’d been too obvious until Dags had mentioned something at the party about wanting to introduce him to a stacked redhead he knew and Rio couldn’t stop himself before his eyes cut over the crowd looking for her. _Elizabeth_. Even though he hadn’t breathed a word about the her to his best friend, Dags clearly realized he’d been scanning redheads everywhere they went, hoping he’d catch a glimpse of her, and called him out to see if his theory was right.

 

She had been on his mind constantly. When he woke up in the morning, the last image he’d been seeing before he opened his eyes was her brilliant blue ones closed to near slits as her lips parted in orgasmic bliss screaming his name. He hadn’t had such vivid sex dreams since he was fifteen. As he drove around town, visiting his businesses, he found himself being extra attuned to every redheaded female he saw on the off chance that one of them would be her. When he was talking to his associates, he heard her voice like an echo whispering at the back of his mind--where his men showed him deference, he heard her snarky defiance; as he raged on about an entirely avoidable screw-up, he heard her voice coyly whispering that his dominance got her wet. It was honestly driving him nuts, having one foot in the _now_ and one foot constantly in some other place with her. A woman he’d spoken to for less than five minutes and would probably never see again.

 

Rio shook his head. Perhaps Dags’ wife, Carla, was right: if he had a woman treating him right at home, he wouldn’t be so distracted...the only problem was that Elizabeth was the first woman in far longer than he would admit to that was even capable of driving him to such distraction. He doubted that generically “having a woman” would keep his mind from constantly straying back to the feisty redhead from the bar.

 

The scent of tangerines and cloves pulled his wandering mind back to the present. As his eyes swept over to her, he nearly did a double-take, but reined in the impulse lest she get the (not at all wrong) idea that she’d been haunting his thoughts since he’d first seen her. She looked good. The light blue of her sweater brought out the red in her hair and complimented her blue eyes perfectly. He bit the side of his lip to keep from doing something stupid.

 

Rio was sure she’d deny it, but he knew she recognized _him_. The slight falter in her otherwise confident stride as she walked into the nearly empty bar gave it away. He grinned as she took a seat at the bar a couple places down from him. The way her jeans hugged her curves in all the right ways was doing something to him that he knew was going to feature in some of his fantasies later.

 

“ _Elizabeth_.” Her name rolled off his tongue like he’d been born to say it.

 

His grin stretched even wider as her bobcut hair bounced springily as her head whipped around to look at him face to face.

 

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he said with the beginnings of smug satisfaction.

 

Her back straightened up as she eyed him with a critical hunger that caused her to present her breasts to him like a gift. He suddenly hated the fact that her sweater didn’t have a more daring neckline.

 

“I’m sorry,” she said in that challenging way he was coming to realize was her way of dealing with the obvious sexual tension between them. “I don’t think we’ve met before.”

 

Rio chuckled before swallowing a groan that threatened to escape his mouth as he watched the smallest involuntary shiver run through her at the sound. “You know, you’re right, Elizabeth.” He couldn’t bring himself to stop saying her name; he needed to get ahold of himself before things got embarrassing.

 

Sticking out his hand, he said, “Rio.” As she tentatively reached for it, he gnawed on his lip, the desire to take her somewhere private so he could bend her over and find some blessed relief for the throbbing ache in his cock becoming overwhelming. The softness of her skin didn’t surprise him as her hand slid into his, but the way her pupils almost immediately blew wide from lust did.

 

The seconds stretched on and they still hadn’t unclasped their hands from one another. He wondered if she felt the electricity running between them as powerfully as he did. A large part of him suspected she did when he noticed her breathing get just a little bit shallower. Eventually, he released her hand. It was the only way he was going to be able to retain whatever little grip he had left on his libido. The pouty whimper she valiantly attempted to cover up made him smile even more. If he was being completely honest, if it had been anyone else, he probably would’ve missed it, but he found himself almost supernaturally attuned to everything about her. His engorged cock strained against the restrictive denim of his pants.

 

Even if he hadn’t seen her eyes drag slowly up and down his body, he was nearly positive that he still would’ve felt their presence like a palpable caress against his skin. It certainly juiced his ego to know that he seemed to have just as much of an effect on her as she had on him. As she continued her unhurried inspection, he felt compelled to hear her voice again. “I didn’t take you for one of those day-drinking PTA-mom types,” he said to rile her up a little.

 

Her eyes immediately whipped back to his face. “ _I’m not_ ,” she spat with indignant shock. “Besides, what makes you think I’m a mom?” she added after a second.

 

Rio had always been hyper-observant, even as a kid. It was a particularly useful trait in his current line of work. Normally though, he tended to keep his observations to himself, locked away until it was the _perfect_ moment to make his play--usually right before he pulled the trigger on someone who betrayed him. With her though, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from constantly showing off his best party trick: first knowing her drink of choice, and now figuring out that she was a mom. He almost shook his head in spite of himself. It was like she wasn’t used to people _seeing_ her, and that floored him. He’d only met her twice and she already stood out to him as a beacon he was obligated to orbit.

 

Casually, he cut his eyes to her purse. “Your car keys. The only people who have those plastic lace keychains are the little girls who make them and the moms they give them to.”

 

He grinned even wider when she scowled at him.

 

“I have a niece,” she gritted.

 

“Uhuh, ma, that’s not it,” he retorted almost gleefully, knowing he was right. “If you were just an aunt, you’d have thrown that out long ago, but you’re a mom, so you’ll keep it until the plastic rots. Which means forever.”

 

The fiery redhead started to get up from her stool and it made a small part of him panic. He needed her to stay, needed to soak up as much of her presence as he could. Even though he had a healthy suspicion as to the answer, he tried stalling her by asking, “If you’re not here to day drink, then why _are_ you here, Elizabeth?”

 

She rolled her eyes at him, and he’d be damned if her open defiance didn’t make his cock get even harder. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I do know I’m not whatever type of person _you_ seem to think I am, Rio.” Her voice hitched just a little as she said his name, and he suddenly knew with perfect clarity _exactly_ how his name would sound as he brought her to orgasmic ecstasy over and over again.

 

“What kind of person are you then?” he challenged.

 

She shrugged and gave a nonchalant toss of her hair before she answered, “I don’t know. A good one?”

 

It was his turn for his eyes to bore holes into her. He waited an extra half-second as if weighing his words particularly carefully. “Nah, ma,” he finally said, “you’re _way_ more interesting than that.”

 

A becoming flush started creeping across the bridge of her nose and into the apples of her cheeks. There it was again. That unshakeable feeling he had that she wasn’t used to being seen for herself; that the fact that someone found her worthy of attention for no other reason than that she existed made her self-conscious.

 

“I have to get to carpool,” she said pushing herself away from the bar, almost as if they’d been having a completely different conversation.

 

As she walked away from him toward the bar’s front door, he inexplicably heard himself call out, “You know where to find me, Elizabeth, if you change your mind.”

 

She didn’t even break her stride as she half-pivoted back toward him to call over her shoulder, “I won’t,” before just a quickly returning face forward to finish exiting the bar.

 

He continued staring at the bar’s door for several long minutes after she left, secretly hoping she’d sweep back in, sprinting back toward him, although he wasn’t very surprised when she didn’t. She did say she had carpool after all. Even though he knew he should take her at her word and believe she wouldn’t come looking for him _again_ , he couldn’t dispel the thought that although her mouth said “not a chance,” her body was thrumming on the same frequency as his own. Rio could wait. It might drive him absolutely nuts, but he would happily choose patient insanity if it meant he could finally have her in his arms the way he’d been dreaming about for weeks.

 

***************************

 

Beth loathed this stupid ritual Dean had gotten their children to rope her into. Every year since she’d kicked his philandering ass out of her house, the “kids” begged her to go to dinner with him on their wedding anniversary. Although she’d suspected Dean of being behind the whole thing for years, Emma had finally (albeit accidentally) confirmed it this time. She’d just come upstairs to kiss her youngest good night before heading off to meet Dean when she overheard the girl telling her stuffed animals that “Daddy says the more often we ask Mommy to spend time with him, the more likely it is Mommy will let him come home. That’s why Daddy says we _always_ have to remember to ask Mommy to have dinner with Daddy on their anniversary.” Although her heart broke a little over the longing she recognized in her daughter’s voice, the feeling was overridden by the desire to gut her estranged husband for so callously emotionally manipulating their children like that.

 

When Dean first suggested having occasional dinners together, Beth had been skeptical, but he’d framed it as a way to “co-parent,” a time when they could meet to discuss the kids in a neutral setting without any distractions. Every dinner was always the same though. Dean would spend the night dominating the conversation, completely ignoring any well-thought out suggestions she had, while patronizingly implying she needed to “stay in her lane.” It infuriated her. And yet, every time the kids would helpfully “remind” her of these sporadic dinner obligations, she would agree to go, desperately hoping that Dean would _finally_ carry through on his end of the bargain and _co_ -parent with her.

 

It was her turn to pick the restaurant, so she decided to treat herself. Dean might be the shadiest asshole she knew, but that didn’t mean she had to deny _herself_ a well-cooked meal and a glass or two of bourbon that she was willing to splurge on. Her “mom blog”/Pinterest side project she’d started when she and Dean first separated had really exploded in the past few months and she was feeling more financially stable and independent than she had in years.

 

She tried bringing his attention to a few thoughts she had on the kids. Kenny in particular had been getting into some unusual trouble at school (a raid of the refrigerator in the teachers’ lounge had been the last straw). Beth thought therapy might help, but wanted to see if Dean’s insurance would cover it, and how they would split up any out-of-pocket costs. She’d learned the hard way that it was critical for her to discuss the financials of these things with him _first_ after Danny had gotten braces, only for her to find out afterwards Dean had assumed she’d cover seventy-five percent of the $8,000.00 deductible since she’d “ _suggested the braces in the first place._ ” Despite her best efforts to isolate his attention to the task at hand, Dean had blithely steamrolled everything she tried to say as he focused first on what appetizer they should order, and then on the wine list. It took all the restraint she had not to epically roll her eyes when he brought up the idea of splitting a bottle of Chardonnay. He’d known her for over two decades, and yet, it was like they were complete strangers.

 

As the thought crossed her mind, Beth found her subconscious unhelpfully piping up that _even complete strangers_ knew her better than the man in front of her. She subtly shook her head trying to dislodge the unbidden image of a lithe, tawny-skinned man with a neck tattoo that should’ve had her running for the hills, but who’d instead cost her another $21.43 in AA batteries since the last time she’d seen him. Beth internally hissed to herself that ‘ _Now was NOT the time’_ as she outwardly ordered a bourbon.

 

Everything about the dinner had gone about as well as she’d expected. Dean had prattled on mindlessly for nearly the entire meal. (If she had to hear one more story about how this time he had “a really good lead on selling the ‘Vette” she was going to stick a steak knife in her ear.) When she had briefly been able to focus his attention on Kenny, he’d scoffed at the idea that _his son_ needed therapy. He’d brought out his “stay-in-your-lane” voice then, telling her in no uncertain terms that “ _as his father_ ” he knew that what Kenny _really_ needed was Krav Magrav classes instead. ‘ _Great_ ,’ Beth silently groused, ‘just what _I_ need. Another activity I’m responsible for scheduling and then schlepping one of our kids to.’  She’d just plastered on her biggest “PTA-mom/I’m-just-so-happy-to-be-here” smile instead, and said nothing as Dean ordered an artisanal dark chocolate fudge puck with dark chocolate ganache for dessert. Beth hadn’t eaten fudge since she was fifteen and Annie has talked her into making a “fudge” recipe that called for an entire can of vanilla cake frosting and a whole bag of melted candy corn mixed together. The intense sugar overload almost rotted a hole through her stomach. If Ruby hadn’t been there to force feed her a shoplifted jumbo-sized container of antacid, she was convinced to this day that she would’ve died. As it was, even now just the smell of fudge was enough to make her gag.

 

By the time their server returned with Dean’s dessert, Beth had already worked her way back toward the bar so that she could dance a little. The fact that it also gained her a temporary reprieve from having to both smell fudge _and_ listen to her estranged husband denigrate the DIY art projects she’d been making money off of for the better part of the last year was a happy bonus. Periodically, she glanced over her shoulder to check on the status of the fudge to figure out when it’d be safe to return to the table and get the check. Beth knew every time she caught his eye though, he thought she was being coy and flirting with him because the goofy look on his face started to linger longer and longer.

 

When Dean finished scraping the last of the chocolate ganache off the plate, she deemed it safe to return to the table, signalling for the check as she walked back over. As she worked her way toward the table, he gave her that hopeful look she’d come to know well over the years--the same one he gave her every time they finished up these dinners. She used to think it was merely alcohol-fueled lust, but now thanks to Emma, she realized he was legitimately hoping that his plan had worked; that he’d won her over with what he surely believed was a successful “date,” and that now, finally, after four years he could move back in with them. Beth was proud of herself for not giving in to her nastier impulses and saying “Not with you” when he asked if she was ready to go home.  

 

She wasn’t entirely sure why she suggested they stop at the bar. It wasn’t really on the way to anywhere either of them would’ve needed to go, and Beth certainly wasn’t eager to prolong her exposure to Dean’s company. ‘ _You’re a coward_ ,’ the bitchy voice in the back of her head spoke up as Dean found a parking spot. ‘You want to see _him_. _Rio_. But you don’t want him to think you’re interested because Soccer Moms from Suburbia _aren’t_ _supposed_ to lust after tatted up younger men who ooze sex and danger.’ Outwardly, she fixed her PTA-approved perma-smile in place as she watched Dean get out of the car expecting her to follow.

 

The bar was just as crowded as it had been when she and the girls had first come together, and Beth felt lucky that they were able to snag a hightop rather than sitting at the bar. Dean had “valiantly” offered to fight his way to the bar to open up a tab. It hadn’t escaped her notice that his eyes had cut over to a blonde in a black and neon yellow spaghetti strap jumpsuit who couldn’t have been more than 25 nursing a glass of rosé, sitting in the section of the bar he made a beeline toward. Rolling her eyes behind his back, she took out her phone to check for any updates from Annie. If it had been anyone else babysitting her kids, Beth would’ve assumed radio silence was a good thing, but with her sister, she knew there was a fifty-fifty chance it meant Annie was in lock-up. Before she had a chance to start tapping out the list of questions she had, a photo popped up on her screen of her kids and their cousin passed out like a mound of corpses on top of her spread out couch cushions cocooned in a hodgepodge of cartoon character blankets and what she recognized as the spare comforter from her upstairs linen closet. The sweetness of the image made her smile. Despite everything that happened in her dumpster fire of a marriage to Dean, Beth would never regret the four children they had together.

 

A moment later, a second text from her sister popped up. ‘Dont drink 2 much. U make stoopid decisions wen u drink.’

 

Beth let out a hearty laugh before she quickly typed back, ‘I think you’re referring to yourself, Annie.’

 

The _woosh_ of the sent text message had barely died when a '🖕🏻' flashed on her screen.

 

Glancing up from her phone, she saw Dean headed back with their drinks, looking for all the world like he’d just found the cure for cancer. The muscles in her jaw began to sporadically twitch as she fought the urge to point out that he’d only gotten them drinks. He had not actually done something medal-worthy. As he set their glasses down with a flourish, Dean practically beamed as he said, “Looks like tonight’s my night, Bethy!” She cringed as he used the nickname she’d hated since they were in high school. He continued on oblivious to her radiating pique. “I think I made some potential Boland Motors customers.” Beth surreptitiously cut her eyes over to the bar—her earlier suspicions were confirmed as she saw Jumpsuit Blonde twirling a Boland Motors business card between her fingers.

 

“That’s _great_ , Dean,” she said flatly.

 

“I know, right? That’s not all though. I was going to get you a glass of that Evan Williams Green stuff—“

 

Beth almost threw the drink in her ex’s face at his ridiculous level of cheapness before catching the rest of his sentence.

 

“—but then the bartender said something about free shots of something called ‘Widow Lane’....I think? I couldn’t really hear up there and I kinda tuned out after he said ‘free.’ So yeah, your first drink was free!”

 

She tentatively lifted her glass as Dean held up his own for a toast. There was a small _clink_ as they tapped their rims together after which she took a small experimental sip of her caramel-colored liquor. The smoothness of the alcohol confirmed her thoughts—it definitely _was_ the much more upscale Widow Jane bourbon. Although she largely considered it out of her price range, she’d tried it once after Annie had decided to “liberate” a bottle from Gregg and Nancy after a particularly raucous New Year’s Eve party several years earlier. Given what she knew of the bourbon, it struck her as odd that the bar would be giving it out for free, especially since there didn’t appear to be any sort of brand reps floating around to suggest there was a launch party or promotional event happening.

 

As they continued to drink in relative silence, Beth found herself casually scanning the bar patrons. She almost laughed out loud when she saw Jumpsuit Blonde getting cozy with the guy with the bicep tribal tattoo that Annie thought she should go for the first time she’d come to the bar. The more devilish part of her wanted to point out the budding bar romance to her ex just so she could watch his face, but the overwhelming “mom” part of her vetoed the suggestion. It was _long_ since past a time when Beth would actually care about who or what Dean stuck his dick inside. There was no reason for her to be petty for the sake of pettiness.

 

Dean had just started rambling on about ordering another drink when she saw _him_. Rio was perched on the same bar stool he perpetually seemed to occupy. She soaked in his profile for several minutes, thoroughly enjoying the tingling in her breasts caused by the relatively innocuous voyeurism.

 

And then he turned his head to catch her gaze.

 

Her thong immediately turned into a useless scrap of fabric as it became saturated by her arousal almost instantly. Beth squeezed her thighs tightly together in a futile effort to relieve some of the sudden deep aching _need_ radiating throughout her pussy. As Rio continued to hold her gaze from across the bar, she felt her nipples become impossibly hard as his focused look told her she had been haunting him as much as he’d been plaguing her. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had looked at her so hungrily.

 

“I’ll be right back,” she murmured as she grabbed her purse. When he gave her one of his token distracted responses, she questioned why she bothered saying anything at all since Dean was clearly more concerned with getting his next drink than with her whereabouts. She sauntered to the back of the bar without a backward glance.

 

           *****************************

 

Rio knew the minute she stepped into the bar.

 

Something about the air changed causing the tiniest hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. When he didn’t immediately see her, he almost doubted his practically infallible sixth sense. However, moments later as he looked over all the bodies moving around throughout the bar, he saw her heading toward a small table along with a guy who looked like he’d wilt in the presence of a real man. He grinned.

 

Flagging over one of the bartenders with a brief head nod, he said, “You see that goofy-looking motherfucker with the stacked redhead?” Rio waited a minute for the bartender to clock Elizabeth before he continued. “If either of them order any bourbon, upgrade it to the Widow Jane and put it on my tab.” The bartender gave him a brief questioning look then nodded his understanding and walked back to the other end of the bar. Content that his order would be followed, Rio went back to his drink, curious to see what her next move was going to be.

 

He found that sitting at the bar gave him an advantage for observing her because he was frequently obscured from her vantage point by all the different people constantly crowding around the bar ordering drinks, whereas as he could see her easily given that she was elevated above the crowd. She was an enigma. It was obvious to him that coming to this bar had been an intentional choice for her given that every minute or so he saw her eyes nonchalantly scan the room like she was searching for someone. And yet, she clearly didn’t want the guy she brought with her to know. Under different circumstances, he would’ve said that a woman behaving like that was either a tease or a cheater, but he didn’t get either vibe off of her. Rio felt vindicated in his thoughts when he saw that she was obviously aware that her “date” was actively looking for his next piece of ass and she thought less of him for it.

 

Although a small part of him thought she’d make a scene over the joke of a man’s behavior, he wasn’t really surprised when she plastered on her obviously fake, yet absolutely condescending smile. He was amazed at just how _dumb_ the guy was--Rio had to laugh because it was clear that _he_ thought the evening with Elizabeth was going well. Suddenly, it hit him. _The dude was her husband_ . Probably former, but possibly current, not that Rio particularly cared since she’d made a point of searching _him_ out. ‘Who you think you foolin’?’ he abruptly found himself thinking. ‘You know you don’t share what’s yours. Especially not with some Cowardly Lion motherfucker over there.’ He rolled his eyes at himself. Once he had a chance to hit it and quit it, he’d be able to move on with his life. Even as the thought crossed his mind though, Rio knew it was a lie. He took a deep sip of his drink to distract himself from his own traitorous thoughts.

 

When he eventually looked up again, he found his gaze locked with hers.

 

Everything about her cried out that she was as thirsty for him as he was for her. The obvious lust radiating from her brilliant blue eyes. The almost imperceptible way she was squirming on her bar stool. Even the way that she refused to shy away from the intensity of his own gaze. All of it was combining to give him the fiercest hard-on of his life.

 

Before he knew it, she got up from the table and headed toward the back of the bar.  As he watched the feisty woman walk away from him, his subconscious piped up, ‘Yo, candyass, this is where you supposed to go get ya girl.’ Just as he was about to get up to follow her, he stopped himself. This wasn’t some romantic movie where two strangers met up once and then chased each other around the world once they realized their feelings. This was _real_ life. So what if she’d been searching for him from the minute she entered the bar, or that she’d been eye-fucking him the entire time they’d been staring at each other? The rational part of him was on the verge of winning out, keeping him safely ensconced in his chair when a softer voice that sounded suspiciously like _hers_ floated through his mind, ‘What can you lose? If you get back there and the door is locked, you just walk away.’

 

He got up.

 

When he passed by their table, he watched the Cowardly Lion out of the corner of his eye and scoffed. _Definitely_ her ex--the man downright reeked of desperation. Rio couldn’t imagine how someone could be so stupid as to let Elizabeth get away. ‘One man’s trash…’ he thought a little grimly.

 

Even though he knew he was keeping his facial expressions neutral, his heart felt like it was going to explode with every step he took closer to her. A part of him that he thought had died when he was a teenager almost wanted the door to be locked so he didn’t have to acknowledge whatever the hell it was brewing between them.

 

One step. Then another. His long fingers reached out for the door and pushed.

 

                                    ********************************

 

As the door opened, the rapid beating of Beth’s heart felt like there was a jackhammer working on her chest. ‘Maybe it’s not him. Maybe it’s not him,’ she found herself thinking with a sort of quiet desperation. Although a small part of her--the rational part--hoped it wasn’t, the _woman_ part of her didn’t think her ego could handle it if it _wasn’t_ him opening the door.

 

Beth felt a part of her soul unclench as he slipped inside the bathroom and their eyes locked in the bathroom mirror. He stared at her with an impassive look that she recognized as his version of her “PTA-smile,” his armor in place in case he misread her signals. The fact that he’d followed her across the bar, into the bathroom, and yet was _still_ giving her a chance to back out from whatever they were about to do only made her pussy ache even more for him. Stalking over to him, she got right in his bubble as she leaned just to the side of him to flip the lock on the door. Her throat went dry as every inch of her skin tingled from the thrumming sexual tension between them.

 

Turning away from him, she slow walked the short distance back to the sink. Gripping the hem of her dress in each hand, she teasingly bunched the material up with both fists until he could see the tempting apples of her ass cheeks along with her drenched thong.

 

If Rio thought he was hard before, he was pretty sure his dick could bust through concrete at this point. Inching closer to her, he reached out and confidently kneaded her pale milky flesh. Whether the shiver he felt in response was from him or her, he wasn’t entirely sure.

 

As she pressed her back against his chest, Beth marvelled at how different he was from the only other man she’d ever slept with. Even as a teenager, Dean had been a little doughy--his family being well-off enough for him not to have the rangy leanness of most of the boys who lived in Beth’s much poorer neighborhood, and lacking the type of athletic prowess or drive to wind up on any of their high school’s sports teams. Rio, on the other hand, had such a solid chest that she actually felt like her back was against a wall. It was an oddly comforting feeling as her subconscious translated the sharp warm planes of his body into an unjustified and almost wholly unshakeable belief that he was incapable of letting her down.

 

He buried his face in the space at the back of her neck where the delicate sinews melted into her collarbone. Her hair tickled his nose a little as he inhaled the faint smell of almonds and lavender. It wasn’t a scent he was expecting after the spiciness of the clove and tangerine perfume she’d worn the last time he saw her, but he liked it--both for the pleasantness of the scent and for the fact that she seemed to be one of the few people who could actually surprise him. His hips ground against her ass letting her feel the full effect she had on his body as he purposefully massaged one of her voluptuous breasts with his skillful hand.

 

Beth felt like all of her nerve endings were on fire as everywhere Rio touched her--whether with his hands, his body, his lips or even his breath--felt like it was on the verge of spontaneous combustion. She writhed shamelessly against him as he passionately manhandled her body, desperately wanting him to do so much more than merely grope her. As if he’d read her mind, she suddenly felt him yank off her soaked panties. Her pussy clenched eagerly in anticipation. If his grinding against her ass was any indication, the firmness of his body was not the only way in which he was more of a man than her ex.

 

Even though he normally wasn’t a particularly religious man, Rio found himself saying a small prayer to any saint that might be listening not to let him embarrass himself in front of his redheaded temptress. The heady aroma of her pussy along with the undeniable signs of her arousal nearly had him cumming in his jeans like an overeager virgin. To keep himself from doing something idiotic, he quickly shoved her obscenely damp panties in his pocket before he pushed her torso further down toward the sink. Leveraging the new position, he boldly worked two of his fingers into her amazingly tight channel, his eyes momentarily rolling back in his head at her pussy’s surprisingly vise-like grip.

 

As his insistently probing fingers worked to open her up for him, Beth was convinced she was going to break off a piece of the sink if she gripped the edge any tighter. She pressed her ass back against him in search of... _something_. Without warning, he spun her around to face him.

 

He wanted to kiss her; had wanted to since the very first time he’d seen her. In the back of his mind, he debated whether her mouth would taste sweet and juicy like ripe cherries, or something spicy and earthier like cinnamon. For reasons he didn’t want to look at too closely, he denied the impulse to capture her lips with his own and dominate her mouth until she was gasping for mercy. Instead, he buried his face in the hollow of her neck again as he wrapped her limber legs around his waist and slowly thrust his cock inside her. Elizabeth’s intermittent pants as her body easily rolled along with the steady undulating rhythm of his hips fueled his pride in a way no other woman had ever managed to do.

 

Rio was going to kill her. As he’d started to work his thick, demanding cock inside her, she was convinced there was no way he was going to fit--her pussy simply couldn’t handle being stretched that way. Then he’d started working her greedy clit with his fingers. The deliberate measured strokes of his cock against her G-spot were combining the deep throbbing ache in her pussy with the more immediate electric gratification of the pressure on her clit, the total effect of which had her flying toward blissful release until she was drowning in a crushing wave of orgasmic nirvana.

 

Elizabeth was killing him. Her breathy moans in his ear along with the silky heat of her wet pussy were driving him to distraction. He deftly worked his fingers over the sensitive nerve center at the apex of her thighs determined to make her cum first. There was no way he’d be able to live with himself otherwise. His fingers worked her clit harder and faster as her breath took on a more high-pitched staccato quality. Despite his best intentions not to muss her up too much, he couldn’t stop himself from biting down a little on the corded muscles of her neck through the thin material of her dress as he felt her fingernails scraping gently against his own skin. Moments later, he felt her orgasm rip through her as her pussy fluttered uncontrollably around his impossibly hard cock, her hand spasmodically banging against the automatic paper towel dispenser as she fought to regain her breath.

 

As she slowly floated back into her body after the most earth-shaking orgasm she’d had in _years_ , (and certainly the best orgasm someone other than herself had ever been responsible for), she felt the insistent tug of his fingers in her hair. The clean tang of her arousal intermittently crossed her mind as she felt the transferred wetness from his fingers dry where they’d briefly dragged across the side of her neck. She continued to periodically squeak and moan as his increasingly urgent thrusts caused his pelvis to occasionally rub against her sorely abused clit. With one last desperate grip of her hair, he gave a low grunt against her neck before his hips stuttered and he collapsed on her body in an orgasmic haze, pinning her against the wall with his dead body weight.

 

They stayed pinioned together for several moments as they each collected their thoughts and took stock of their bodies.

 

Rio reluctantly pulled his face away from the curve of her neck and gazed into her bright blue eyes. The swirling mix of emotions he saw there seemed to match his own tumultuous thoughts. Even though it killed him to do it, he let his semi-flaccid cock slip out of the siren embrace of her pussy and backed away from her. There was _so_ much he felt compelled to tell her. Unfortunately, he suspected that although he had a pretty good grasp on what he wanted from _her_ , he wasn’t entirely sure that _she’d_ figured out what, if anything, she wanted from him beyond a quick and dirty bathroom fuck. With that in mind, he knew that if he pressed his advantage now, while her body was still twitching from periodic orgasmic aftershocks, he would potentially be unfairly influencing her decision-making, and she would ultimately wind up hating him for it. He took in a deep shuddering breath before letting it out painfully slow. ‘I can afford to be patient,’ he forced himself to remember. Brushing his lips impossibly close to her ear  as he zipped up his jeans, he whispered, “Jus’ remember, Elizabeth, I intend to keep what’s mine.” The last thing he saw as he left her in the bathroom was a challenging twinkle in her eyes,

 

Beth glanced at her watch expecting to see that they’d been in the bathroom for hours. She was shocked to see she hadn’t been away from the table for more than about twelve minutes. Ripping off a large swathe of paper towel from the automatic dispenser, she ran it under some lukewarm water in order to clean up her dripping pussy and her sticky inner thighs. When she was done ridding herself of the most obvious signs of her impromptu tryst with Rio, she debated splashing some cold water on her face to do something to calm the flush of her recent exertions. In the end, she opted for running some more damp paper towels over the back of her neck instead, on the extremely off-chance that Dean actually noticed anything amiss with her.

 

Her sorely-abused thighs complained with every step she took back to the hightop. Without even glancing around, Beth knew he was no longer in the bar--something about the air just felt... _staler_. It made her sad. Glancing over at Dean hunched over his closed out tab, she sighed heavily. Even though she might have some things to sift through regarding the extent of her feelings about Rio, she did know one thing for certain--it would be a frosty day in Hell before her ex got to touch her the same way as the captivating man with the neck tattoo.

  
  
  
  
  
  



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